Sand volleyball stars Anders Mol and Christian Sørum have only lost one medal in their collection. On Saturday, they were one step closer.

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They have won the Olympics, European Championships and World Series.

But there is one tournament they have never won, namely the World Cup.

At the WC in Hamburg 2019, it was WC bronze, but they still didn’t forget the painful defeat in the semifinals.

– It really hurts. We don’t want to experience that again. “I know a lot of people have come down to Rome to cheer, so hopefully we’ll get a bit of Norway’s turn to have a good experience there,” said Mol. in a previous interview with VG.

On Saturday night, the duo opened the World Cup in Rome against Italian duo Davide Benzi/Carlo Bonifazi.

Last year’s Olympic winner started the championship in the best way possible with a win.

The first set opened evenly to 4-4, and the Italian duo showed they would not give up without taking on the favourites. Then the red jerseys take nine of the next twelve points awarded. The Norwegian duo took full control and won the set 21-11.

The second set started with a draw where Benzi/Bonifazi held on to 6-5. Then Mol/Srum ran away. Mol served her third of the game as Norway led 19-8. Norway won the set 21-10.

If Mol/Sørum make it to the final match, they depend on coming out of the pool as number one or two.

On Sunday, the duo will face Dutch pair Leon Luini and Ruben Penninga. The final group matches will be played on Monday against Chile’s Noe Aravena and Vicente Dorguett Torrealba.

Norwegian second pair Mathias Berntsen and Hendrik Mol opened the World Cup in Rome with a win over American duo Chaim Schalk / Theodor Brunner.

On Saturday, the sand volleyball duo lost in straight sets to Czech Ondrej Perusic / David Schweiner.

The score is 21-13, 21-17 in the Italian capital.

Berntsen and Mol conclude the preliminaries against Ainadino Martinho/Jorge Monjane of Mozambique on Monday.